(Used to be) Springwood Colquhouns: A thousand splendid suns by Khaled Hosseini : ISBN 9780747582977

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

A thousand splendid suns by Khaled Hosseini : ISBN 9780747582977

Mariam is 15 and lives with her mother in a village outside Herat, Afghanistan. Her father visits weekly and she idolises him and yearns to be accepted by his legitimate family. When her mother dies, rather than be looked after by her father, she is quickly married off to the much older Rasheed and goes to live hundreds of miles away in Kabul.
Many childless years later she is joined by a second 15 year old wife, Laila. Initially hostile to Laila, the two women find comfort and support in each other.
All this time trouble and strife is raging in Afghanistan with mujahadeen, Russians and the Taliban all wreaking their own kinds of havoc. Life is a struggle, Rasheed is brutal and the women suffer much before reaching breaking point.
A wonderful story. I highly recommend it, as well as the first book Hosseini wrote, The kite runner.

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